Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Print any colour you like...

The two filaments left and right were mixed to print the component in the middle. (Myles says sorry for the lousy iPod photos.) The mixer is now active - it has a small DC motor turning a stirrer in the brass hot end to churn the melt up, and that seems to do the trick.

SEPARATE MIXING PHASE WITH MIXING AND FILAMENT PRODUCING MACHINEWant to share an idea that is not mine on a multiextruder for different, materials, colors ecc.I've talk to a worker in an alluminium factory and he sayed that when they put a layer of color on the surface of alluminium they first prepare calibrated cips of pre mixed material to lay on the pieces of alluminium and then use the makine that put them down on pieces.So he think that also in reprap we can separate mixing phase with extrusion phase. First have a machine that create a multicolor, multimaterial filament, and then give it to the standard reprap with a standard extruder.Advantages:use standard, low price, extruder with already working tecnologymake easy use wasted materialuse material fn every shape and not only filament so we can avoid buying coils of filament buy materials in pellets is cheaper then in filamentno problems of dimension, limited number of filaments, ecc in mixing phasepossibility to choose filament diametertecnology partialy already presentDisvantages:more energy use to hit, cool material a first time for filament and a second time for extrusionrisk of systematic error if machine is slower or faster then calculated in introducing rainbow filament or if the filament isn't perfect (need of optic sensor)not fast to start printing because first need to produce filament if we will not be able to produce filament and give it live to the printerconsideration:if 2 material aren't mixable mix them is a problem in every case

Something I'd be curious about is how rapidly the mix's colour can be changed on the fly. If you've got a full five-colour array of filament feeds, could one print out a picture like an inkjet printer does on paper? Or would there need to be some kind of waste receptacle where the print head would need to go to flush itself of the old mix before switching to a new colour?

i think it would be practical for the firmware to send the head to print a different part on the plate when transitioning colors that way you get one rainbow print and on print with the color sharpness of a dual head printer